TV News LIES

Many Americans view their country and its soldiers as the "good guys" spreading "democracy" and "liberty" around the world. It just ain't so.

This military tradition has explicitly defended the selective use of terror, whether in suppressing Native American resistance on the frontiers in the 19th Century or in protecting U.S. interests abroad in the 20th Century or fighting the "war on terror" over the last decade.

The American people are largely oblivious to this hidden tradition because most of the literature advocating state-sponsored terror is carefully confined to national security circles and rarely spills out into the public debate, which is instead dominated by feel-good messages about well-intentioned U.S. interventions abroad.

In a first for a former Guantánamo captive freed by a federal judge, a Syrian man now living in Europe is suing the U.S. government for damages from what he calls a ``Kafkaesque nightmare.''

The 44-page lawsuit by Abdul Razak al Janko, 32, described a decade-long odyssey of detention -- first in Taliban-era Afghanistan, where he was tortured as an alleged pro-American Israeli spy, and later in U.S. military prisons that ignored or misdiagnosed his history as a torture victim.

The Army tacked a five-month extension on Sgt. Ryan Christian Major's term of military service in 2006, and that November, just five days after his original discharge date, Ryan was critically injured when an underground bomb exploded during a foot patrol in Ramadi, Iraq.

Ryan was evacuated from Iraq and brought to a hospital in Germany, where he underwent extensive surgery. His pelvis had been broken, and doctors amputated both of his legs above the knees. He suffered from traumatic brain injury (TBI) and would go on to develop post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). For two months after the explosion, Ryan's family was unsure of he would survive. He did.

It’s one of those head-in-hands, stomach churning moments, akin to when a lover finally shuts the door. You’re left in shock, beliefs awry. Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition of the extremes is about to pass into law an unprecedented loyalty oath - aimed at non-Jews only. New, non-Jewish citizens will have to swear allegiance to the “Jewish and democratic” state of Israel.

This is wrong on so many levels. Just for starters, the Jews of Europe were hounded through history and their loyalty questioned because they could not, in good faith, swear allegiance to Christian monarchies and states. Next, it  corrupts all the principles of liberal democracy, tolerance and minority rights.

When Judge Henry Kennedy Jr. ordered the release of a Guantánamo Bay detainee last spring, the case appeared to be a routine setback for an Obama administration that has lost a string of such cases.

But there turns out to be nothing ordinary about the habeas case brought by Uthman Abdul Rahim Mohammed Uthman [2], a Yemeni held without charges for nearly eight years. Uthman, accused by two U.S. administrations of being an al-Qaida fighter and bodyguard for Osama bin Laden, is among 48 detainees [3] the Obama administration has deemed too dangerous to release but "not feasible for prosecution."

Bank of America Corp., the biggest U.S. lender, extended a freeze on foreclosures to all 50 states as concern spread among federal and local officials that homes are being seized based on false data.

“We will stop foreclosure sales until our assessment has been satisfactorily completed,” the Charlotte, North Carolina- based company said today in a statement. “Our ongoing assessment shows the basis for foreclosure decisions is accurate.”

Tel Aviv's Defense Ministry Director General Udi Shani signed the agreement, worth nearly $3 billion, during a ceremony in New York on Thursday, Israeli daily Haaretz reports, noting that "the entire deal will be funded by the American military."

According to the deal, Israel will receive the attack aircrafts between 2015 and 2017, at a price of $96 million per plane, together with simulators and spare parts, with a total price tag of $2.75 billion. The deal also grants the Israeli regime the option of ordering 75 more jets.

Hollywood film studio Metro Goldwyn Mayer has begun plans to file for bankruptcy protection in an effort to rid itself of $4bn (£2.5bn) of debts. The studio is asking more than 100 of its creditors to approve a plan that will see it enter chapter 11 bankruptcy while it restructures.

Creditors will get a 95% stake in the company as part of the deal. MGM said it would continue to operate as normal during the bankruptcy procedures.